"I've wanted to return to the simplicity of these songs, to show people my voice, a voice they won't have heard before"

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Roger Daltrey might believe rock music is dead, but that isn’t stopping him from doing everything in his power to revive it. On June 1st, The Who frontman will release As Long As I Have You, Daltrey’s first solo studio album since Going Back Home, his 2014 collaborative record with Dr. Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson.

Produced by Dave Eringa (Manic Street Preachers), the 11-track album will feature Daltrey’s Who guitarist Pete Townshend on seven of the tracks. Other guests include keyboardist Mick Talbot of Dexys Midnight Runners and Suede’s Sean Genockey on guitar. The album was recorded in between legs of The Who’s recent 50th anniversary tour, and features a mix of original tracks and covers of songs that have inspired Daltrey throughout his career. These include renditions of Nick Cave’s “Into My Arms”, Stevie Wonder’s “You Haven’t Done Nothing”, and the title track, which was originally recorded by Garnet Mimms in 1964.

“This is a return to the very beginning, to the time before Pete [Townshend] started writing our songs, to a time when we were a teenage band playing soul music to small crowds in church halls,” Daltrey says in a press release.

He continues:

“That’s what we were, a soul band. And now, I can sing soul with all the experience you need to sing it. Life puts the soul in. I’ve always sung from the heart but when you’re 19, you haven’t had the life experience with all its emotional trials and traumas that you have by the time you get to my age. You carry all the emotional bruises of life and when you sing these songs, those emotions are in your voice. You feel the pain of a lost love. You feel it and you sing it and that’s soul. For a long time, I’ve wanted to return to the simplicity of these songs, to show people my voice, a voice they won’t have heard before. It felt like the right time. It’s where I am, looking back to that time, looking across all those years but also being here, now, in the soulful moment.”

In advance of the release, Daltrey’s shared his riff on “As Long As I Have You”, which he’s reinterpreted as a rollicking, gospel-flecked burner emboldened by squealing horns, jaunty piano, and a vibrant backing choir. Listen to it below.

See the album’s artwork and tracklist below.

As Long As I Have You Artwork:

As Long As I Have You Tracklist:
01. How Far
02. Where Is A Man To Go?
03. Get On Out Of The Rain
04. I’ve Got Your Love
05. Into My Arms
06. You Haven’t Done Nothing
07. Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind
08. Certified Rose
09. The Love You Save
10. Always Heading Home